Development of laser polarimeter-saccharimeter

• Grant number: 05/55866-6
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: February 01, 2006
• End date: January 31, 2008
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Analytical Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: José Félix Manfredi
• Grantee: José Félix Manfredi
• Company: Tech Chrom Instrumentos Analíticos Ltda. - ME
• City: Campinas

Abstract

The project is aimed at the development of technology applicable to sectors fundamental to national economic life, specifically the sugar-alcohol and the natural products pharmaceutical sectors, contributing to their technological evolution and proposing solutions of ecological and socio-labor import. The present project aims to complete the development and make viable the pre-mass production of an infra-red laser saccharimeter, for application in the determination of sucrose levels in sugarcane juice and process fluids in sugar and alcohol factories, and to develop, based on the same technology, a polarimeter for the pharmaceutical industry for quiral active principles, notably for those obtained from natural products. The adoption of this technology combines the traditional advantages of polarimetric technique with the innovatory characteristics of an instrument that does not present the operational limitations of conventional equipment, mainly with regards to the clarification of samples of low transmittance. The instrument possesses a miniaturized laser source, which enables direct incidence on the sample cell of a coherent monochromatic collimated beam. The project innovates in the application of concepts of solid-state laser optical polarimetry, introducing operational characteristics that make the instrument here proposed the first infrared laser saccharimeter/polarimeter on the international market. The principal applications of the product in Brazil are in the sugar-alcohol agroindustry, where it is used in the system of payment for sugarcane by sucrose level and in the control of the processes of sugar and alcohol production, in the sugar-consuming food industry and in the pharmaceutical industry based on natural quiral products. In this phase of the project we will be optimizing the performance of the detection and optical source system, adapting them to the operational and communications software, and defining the layout of the electronic circuit boards: the instrument will receive industrial design in conformity with the market standards and we will make viable a pre-mass model for real application tests. The development proposed here will give origin to a line of optical analysis instruments for different industrial and academic applications: the operational results obtained in our laboratory will be published in a specialized journal, presenting the differentiated characteristics of the product to the target-audience. (AU)